The Last and Greatest
by AJ Kline
Summary: The last Dragonborn is needed once again as Apocrypha threatens to unleash a new terror on Tamriel. Martin Septim takes his search for forgiveness to Solstheim, where the first Dragonborn has begun to seize control. Dragonborn questline spoilers. T for some language and blood. Set after the Skyrim fic Stars to Guide You. Updates on alternate Saturdays!
1. Ghosts of the Past

**Ghosts of the Past**

Martin Septim stood back, looking over the little house. To say he was admiring his handiwork was to give him a bit too much credit: the house was more a shack than anything else. It was unsettlingly lopsided, and the roof hung at an odd angle. Someone behind him tut-tutted disapprovingly.

"You're gonna have to tear it down and start over. _Again."_

Martin sighed, hanging his head. "I know... but it's going to have to do for now," he said. "I need to report back to the Temple of Mara and meet up with Desmond, it will be fine while I'm gone."

"Has it even got locks on the doors?" Jean Christophe asked, giving the door a surprisingly solid knock. Martin scowled at the ghost of his comrade before turning to pick up his bag from where it sat by the drafting bench.

"I _did_ read about proper lock design. It will be fine," he insisted. "Come on."

The door swung open. Jean looked pointedly at Martin. "Really? Proper lock design?"

Martin glowered at him. "Close the door and let's go. No one is going to think anything of value is in there, anyway."

"Yeah, fair enough." Jean shut the door and followed Martin to the south, towards Whiteurn. "Let's just hope it doesn't cave in on everything you hold dear."

"Do not tempt fate. Fate has creative ways of answering," Martin pointed out.

As they traveled, they gave the city of Whiterun a wide berth. Ghosts tended to make the people of Skyrim a bit uncomfortable, if the unfavorable reception of Ivarstead was any indication. But when out and about, Martin frequently traveled with at least one of the long-dead heroes of his past, even more so now that he and Desmond had gone separate ways. It had been a mutual agreement after a few more months of companionship, fighting off bandit raids and the occasional dragon attack. While he and Desmond still met up and occasionally ran into each other, and while the toll of Alduin's fall still stung beneath his skin, Martin had to admit that he missed the adventurous life. He enjoyed his work for the Temples well enough, but there was something to be said for getting up in the morning and simply taking on whatever the day had to offer.

"How are the girls?" Martin asked offhandedly.

"Hm?" Jean looked surprised. "Fine. Anna's having a blast in Sovngarde and Amelie Rose is still catching up with Lex and her daughter."

"Oh. Good."

"I mean, we're dead. What can go wrong now?"

This was true. Especially with Alduin gone, the afterlife had to be one of the safest places in creation. "How about Aleius?" Martin asked.

"Alenvar?" Jean nodded. "He's good. He and Amelie Rose are getting along famously, let me tell you. Sometimes I think they're fighting, but then I get close enough to hear them spouting restoration theory and black arts arguments at each other for days on end... I don't understand a word of it."

"That's excellent. I had hoped they would get along," Martin said as Jean fell behind.

"Where to?" asked the carriage driver outisde the Whiterun stables.

"Riften," Martin said, looking back. Jean bowed his head and vanished in a small puff of blue fog.

"All right. Climb in back and we'll be off."

* * *

_"You shall not evade me forever. Your free will is an illusion. Whether you acknowledge me or not is your own business. But I will be in your mind."_

* * *

He had learned long ago never to Shout inside the house, even for a companion. The Voice was not something to be quietly used.

_**"ZOOR!"**_

A bluish cloud of smoke came to the ground from the starry skies above, Amelie's ghost rising from it. She held a staff in her hand, a handful of lightning in the other. They always came expecting battle—better paranoid than blindsided.

"What do you need?" she asked evenly, hanging her staff on her back with a muted glare in his direction. At least she was no longer _angry_ with him.

"I need to speak with you," he said.

Amelie shook her head, sighing deeply. "I'm not getting into this again."

"Not that. Something different," Martin added quickly. "Please, it's important."

He led the way into the little house, sitting down on a chair that tipped dangerously on uneven legs. She refused to sit in the other chair, probably for that very reason. Instead, she stayed standing, her arms tightly crossed and her eyes still narrowed in a glare.

"What now?" she asked.

"I've just come from Winterhold." Martin pulled the Oghma Infinium out of his bag and laid it on the table. He watched her expression go from quietly upset to horrified. "Septimus got the box open."

"And _that_ was inside?"

"Yes."

"You're not...?" Amelie sank into her chair, leaning forward to keep it from tipping. "You aren't going to read it, are you?"

"No. It's going to stay in the trunk with all the rest," Martin said firmly.

"What all do you have?" she asked.

"Oghma Infinium," he said, ticking them off on his fingers. "A ring of Hircine's, mace of Molag Bal, Sanguine Rose—"

"How did you—"

_"Long_ story," Martin said dismissively. "And a beacon of Meridia's. I should probably deal with that at some point, she keeps talking to me through it."

Amelie crossed her arms on the table, frowning. "I worry for you with all this Daedric influence."

"At least here, I can safely ignore them," Martin pointed out, unlocking a chest in the corner of the single-room shack. All the artifacts he had collected in the past few months were piled unceremoniously inside. He dropped the Oghma Infinium on top and shut the chest again, locking it. "And the rest of Tamriel can ignore them, too."

"How can anyone ignore it if Meridia's constantly yelling at you?" Amelie pointed out.

"It's not that loud inside the chest, and she doesn't _yell—"_

"What now?"

Martin shrugged. "Stay the night here, at least. The Temple of Mara has nothing else for me to do, so."

"Then what?" Amelie prompted.

"I don't know." Admitting it out loud made him feel more restless than he had felt in a long while. "I don't know what's left to be done."

A knowing smile crept onto her face. "I know this feeling."

"What feeling?"

"Purposelessness." She rested her chin in her hand, looking at him. "The battle is over, the war is won, and the hero is left without anything to do. It happened to me."

"And how did you get past it?"

She laughed. "I got married. Had children. Faked my death and became a madgod."

Martin scoffed. "I aspire _not_ to do any of that."

"Well, then ignore me." Amelie clasped her hands together on the table, twisting her wedding ring on her finger. "Surely there is something left for you to do. Remember the plan."

"The plan was just to _do good_, and I should like to think I have done that," Martin pointed out. "A few times over, by now."

"So do you feel forgiven?"

"No!" He shook his head, sighing. "No. I feel better, but not..."

They were quiet. Amelie rose from her chair and gently pushed it back in to the table, picking up a book from a small, slanted bookshelf. "Then perhaps you aren't done," she suggested.

"Perhaps I am trying to find forgiveness in the wrong places," he said dully.

"Listen." She leaned down to look him in the eyes. "Stay the night here, all right? In the morning we can talk more about what to do. Maybe something will pop up and need dealing with."

Martin sighed. "Right. All right, sure."

Amelie turned to leave the house. She never stayed inside the house overnight, none of them did. Whenever he stayed at Heljarchen Hall, they watched the door from the little garden outside. "Get some rest," she said, flipping open the book she'd surely read a hundred times over weeks of nights spent keeping the house safe.

"Amelie?"

"Hm?" She looked up, a little ball of light in her hand.

Martin paused, the ghost of an idea occurring to him. He'd sleep on it, but just maybe... why hadn't he thought of it sooner? "Desmond loved his ring," he said finally.

Amelie beamed brightly at him. "Good. I'm glad."

"Good night."

"Good night," she said, closing the door behind her.

Her little ball of light shone faintly from outside as he drifted off to sleep.

* * *

The captain of the Northern Maiden brought the ship to the dock, the deck pitching and rocking as it made port. It had been a turbulent ride from the docks of Windhelm. So this was Morrowind.

"Well, here we are. This is Raven Rock," said Captain Gjalund. "Can't say I'm all that glad to see it again. Good luck. Maybe you can figure out what's going on around here."

"Thank you." Martin stepped off the boat, looking around. Raven Rock was entirely foreign to him, and looked nothing at all like the cities of Skyrim he'd grown used to. The air was dry and dusty, even over the water. What was it that he expected to find here? With any luck, something to do. If that something happened to lead him towards whoever wanted him dead, such the better.

A professional-looking Dark Elf approached him as he walked on the dock, still taking in the surroundings.

"I don't recognize you, so I'll assume this is your first visit to Raven Rock, outlander," said the elf. "State your intentions."

"Hm?" Brought back to earth, Martin searched for words. "I'm looking for Miraak. Do you know where I can find him?"

The elf looked faintly confused. "Miraak. I... I'm not sure that I do."

"So..." Martin crossed his arms, suspicious. "Do you know who he is?"

"I, I'm unsure. I swear I know the name, but I cannot place it." The elf frowned, his gaze a thousand leagues away.

"Can you tell me anything about him?"

"I don't think so. I'm not..." The elf broke off. This was becoming more and more strange by the moment. "The name has something to do with the Earth Stone, I think. But I'm not sure what."

Martin nodded, still suspicious. "Thank you."

"Just remember, Raven Rock is sovereign ground of House Redoran. This is Morrowind, not Skyrim. While you're here, you will be expected to abide by our laws."

"Of course."

"Remember, we're watching you." The elf turned to the captin of the Maiden. "Gjalund! I was beginning to wonder what happened to you."

"We, ah. We were delayed by bad weather. Before you even ask, yes, I have the supplies you requested. But..."

Martin took off, looking around the city and wondering how bad an idea it would be to call for a companion here. He thought better of it—at least in parts of Skyrim, he could explain the ghosts away as a Shout. He wasn't sure what kind of clout the term "Dragonborn" held in Morrowind. Hopefully, the next time he spoke with Amelie, she would have some information for him.

"Excuse me," he said, stopping someone at random on the road. "Do you know of someone called Miraak?"

"Do I?" asked the elf, sounding lost. "I was going to say no, but something makes me feel like I do. Does that make sense?"

"...No," Martin admitted. "Is he someone here in Raven Rock?"

"No, I'm sure of that," said the elf, shaking his head with such vigor that his hat fell askew. "And yet, I think I had a dream of a temple, and he was there."

"Thank you."

"Pleasant journey, serjo."

Martin wandered around Raven Rock, asking a few more elves he saw if they knew anything of Miraak and receiving much the same response. How could it be that someone had sent a pack of soldiers to kill him, and somehow not exist? He reached what he hoped to be the outskirts of town, among what looked to be ruins.

_**"ZOOR!"**_

Amelie descended from the clouds, quickly putting away her staff.

"All right, here's what I know," she said immediately, walking alongside him. "Solstheim was given to Morrowind in the early Fourth Era, I vaguely remember this happening a few years after Ocato was assassinated. Lore has it that Solstheim used to be a contingent area of Skyrim until some Dragon Priests in the Merethic Era tore it from the mainland."

"That doesn't help me."

"Sorry," she said, frowning. "I'm not sure what will be relevant, that was a pretty cryptic note."

"How did Morrowind come to claim it?"

"Red Mountain turned half the island into ashlands. The High King of Skyrim turned over rulership to Morrowind as a goodwill gesture," Amelie reeled off. "The elves here were probably displaced by the destruction and escaped here."

"Probably to the Gray Quarter of Windhelm, too." Martin crossed his arms, frowning. "I don't suppose any of this has anything to with Miraak."

"Alen and I came up empty," Amelie admitted.

"He's helping?" Martin asked, shocked.

Amelie cringed a bit. "I... had to be creative about how I asked."

Martin's shoulders drooped a bit. "Ah."

"He'll come around," Amelie said comfortingly. "Just give him some time."

"Here at his shrine."

"Here do we toil."

"That we might remember."

The ruins were not so deserted, after all. None of them seemed to pay them any mind, going about their work carrying stones and praying to a tall stone structure in the middle of a pool of water. They recited snippets of some sort of mantra as they worked, their eyes glazed over and unfocused.

"By night we reclaim."

"By day what was stolen."

"Far from ourselves."

"What in the world...?" Martin tried to get the attention of a man walking rigidly towards the work site. The man did not stop, moving right past them towards the tall stone. "I don't suppose you have an explanation for this?" he asked Amelie.

"Hardly." She was standing on her toes, trying to look one of the hyper-focused workers in the eye. "I cannot imagine what's gotten into them, I can hardly assume this is normal."

"You there."

Martin turned around, coming face to face with a Dunmer man who looked decidedly more in possession of his faculties than the rest of the men and elves working around the stone. Amelie backed away nervously.

"No no, stay," the elf said quickly, frowning at her in what appeared to be curiosity. "You're quite interesting."

"Thank you?" she said uncertainly, casting an anxious look at Martin as the elf peered closely at her, mumbling something to himself.

Martin cleared his throat, attracting the strange man's attention again. "Can I help you?" he asked.

"You don't seem to be in quite the same state as the others," said the elf, turning to peer at Martin with an unsettlingly clinical stare. _"Very_ interesting. May I ask what it is you're doing here?"

"I'm looking for someone named Miraak," Martin said carefully. Something about this stranger struck him as odd, even though he wasn't entranced as the rest of the group was. "Do you know him?"

"Miraak... Miraak..." The stranger stood up straight, arms crossed. "It _sounds_ familiar, and yet I can't quite place..."

"You and the rest of this town," Martin sighed. "No one seems to know who he is."

"Oh wait! I recall!" The stranger's face lit up for a moment, almost immediately falling back into its frown. "But that makes very little sense. Miraak's been dead for thousands of years."

"What does that mean?" Martin asked the stranger.

"I'm not sure. But it _is_ fascinating, isn't it? Perhaps it has some relation to what's going on here." The stranger turned to the stone and those working on it. "Quite unexpected."

"What are they doing?" Amelie asked.

"Building something. Clearly," the stranger said matter-of-factly. "And yet, they don't seem to have much to say about it. I'm very interested to find out what happens when they finish."

"Have you tried to stop this?" Martin asked, approaching the stone proper. It was tall and solid, but appeared not to be extraordinary in any way he could tell.

"Certainly not! Doing so would interfere with whatever is going on, and I would be unable to see how this all turns out," said the stranger.

"What is this stone for?" he asked.

"Don't—DON'T, that seems inadvisable!" the stranger said quickly as Martin touched it.

His vision blurred for a moment, voices blending together around him.

"Fascinating..."

"...what are you _doing_..."

"...whatever influence is affecting..."

"...MARTIN!"

He shook his head, clearing the fog from his mind. He was among the other workers, holding a heavy stone in his hands. "What...?"

"Ah! So you appear to be able to resist the effect by exerting your will," the stranger said, again peering closely at him. "Fascinating."

"Are you all right?" Amelie asked.

"Fine... what happened?"

"You started working with them." She fidgeted nervously, watching as he dropped the stone on a pile of others. "Perhaps you have a stronger mind than they."

"Perhaps."

"I would advise not touching the stone again," the stranger said knowingly. "The effects of repeated contact could be... well, unless of course you'd like to contribute to my investigation. It could be very enlightening to observe you."

"I'd rather not," Martin said, running a hand through his hair. "Is there anything else you can tell me about Miraak?"

The stranger grumbled noncomittally. "I'm afraid I can't give you any answers, but there are ruins of an ancient temple of Miraak's toward the center of the island. If I were you, I'd look there."

Martin turned to Amelie, who shrugged. "That's more information than I was able to find."

"It's as good a place to start as any. Thank you—"

The stranger was already off, observing another of the unfortunate workers on the stone.

* * *

Jean was still scowling at him as they approached the construction around the shrine. "I can't believe you."

"What?"

"A thousand gold?" Jean demanded. "That had to be the most thinly veiled excuse I've ever heard!"

"That was a lot of money," Anna Marie agreed.

"I have nothing else to spend it on!" Martin pointed out.

"More books?" Amelie suggested lightly. "It's what I'd do—"

"What about _fixing your damn house?"_ Jean snapped.

"I just wanted to help the poor fellow!" Martin said defensively. "Stuck digging an entire barrow out of the dust, I don't envy him the job. Besides, what happened to _doing good?"_

"There's a difference between doing good and bleeding gold!" Jean scolded.

Martin blew out a breath, refusing to entertain anything further. While none of them agreed that the investment had been wise, the three ghosts had been a great help when strange bugs and reavers launched themselves at him on the way from Ralis's newly financed dig site.

"That world will cease to be."

"Here in his temple."

A dragon skeleton lay buried in the ash. Martin led the way up into the construction, Amelie waving the other two ghosts on.

"They seem not to care," she explained. "Something's taken hold of them, they won't notice us."

"That they have forgotten."

"Here do we toil."

"That we might remember..."

"They're all reciting that mantra, too," Martin said. "Do you think Miraak is controlling them?"

"All of them?" Amelie asked. "From beyond the grave, apparently?"

"...please! You must listen to me!"

As they neared the center of the shrine, they heard shouting. A woman was yelling at one of the workers, begging her to leave. She was a tall and heavily armored Nord woman who spoke with an unfamiliar accent.

"You there. What brings you to this place? Why are you here?" she asked.

"Who are you?" Martin asked. The ghosts made themselves scarce, ducking behind columns and watching from a safe distance as Martin spoke with her.

"I am Frea of the Skaal. I am here to either save my people or avenge them."

"Save them? From what?"

"I am unsure." Frea crossed her arms, shifting uneasily. "Something has taken control of most of the people of Solstheim. It makes them forget themselves, and work on these horrible creations that corrupt the Stones, and the land itself. My father Storn, our shaman, says Miraak has returned to Solstheim, but that is impossible."

Martin nodded. "That's what we know, too. Miraak tried to have me killed."

"Then you and I both have reason to see what lies beneath us. Let us go, there is nothing more I can do here." Frea cast a glance back at the workers, still reciting in low voices as they worked. They showed no signs of slowing or stopping, even as the sun sank lower on the horizon. "The Tree Stone and my friends are beyond my help for now. We need to find out way into the temple below."


	2. From One to the Next

**From One to the Next**

Martin cast a glance back over his shoulder. He could just barely see the hilt of Anna Marie's sword, sticking out from behind a pillar. "Do you know anything about Miraak?" he asked Frea, turning back to face her.

"His story is as old as Solstheim itself," she told him. "He served the dragons before their fall from power, as most did. He was a priest in their order, but unlike most, he turned against them. He made his own path, and his actions cost him dearly. The stories say he sought to claim Solstheim for himself, and the dragons destroyed him for it."

"So he must have been around back when..." Martin frowned, piecing the information together. "If everything I know is true, there is simply no way Miraak can still be alive. Not without help."

"Perhaps—!"

A ghostly arrow shot by, knocking back a man in a bone mask. "MOVE IT!" yelled Jean, bow already ready again.

Frea raised a pair of war axes, whipping around and entering the fray. Spells and arrows flew around the temple, the workers keeping to their trance and simply avoiding them.

"Come! We must find a way to end Miraak's influence," Frea directed, lowering her axes and heading into the Temple.

Martin hesitated, waving the ghosts along with him as he followed. "Are you here by yourself?" he asked Frea. "Where do you come from?"

"Skaal Village, to the north. There are few of us left unaffected by this curse," Frea said, looking around the inside of the dusty temple. "My father, Storn the shaman, protects them in the village."

"How is it that you are unaffected?"

"I fashioned an amulet to guard me against whatever has taken hold of the Skaal, but it is the only one of its kind." Frea tapped her chest, where an amulet strung with blue beads hung around her neck. "I see Miraak has no hold on you, either."

"I am new to Solstheim," Martin said. "Whatever Miraak does cannot reach me. Not for long, at least."

"Is it because of...?" Frea looked to the ghosts lingering behind him, surveying them with both curiosity and uncertainty.

"No! No," Martin said quickly. "No, this is... different."

Jean inclined his head to Frea. "No relation," he clarified. "We just serve him."

"Why?"

The room fell silent a moment. Amelie stepped forward, also bowing her head to their new companion. "Because he asked," she said.

"You are not family?" The started walking into the ruins, looking around the empty, musty rooms for something that might point them in the right direction.

"No. He is our master," Anna Marie said.

"Then why are you—?" Frea looked curiously between Martin and Jean. Martin glanced helplessly at Jean, who sighed.

"It's complicated," Jean said dully. "We don't understand it, either."

"But we need not understand it to accept it for what it is," Amelie tacked on quickly. "We served him in life, and intend to do so in death, too. If ever he has need of us, we are here to help."

"Oh." Frea nodded. "I see."

"Do we scare you?" Amelie asked. "If we do—"

"No." Frea picked up a ruined book from a table, leafing through it before tossing its blackened pages back down. "We Skaal believe that death is only a passage from one form to the next. I do not completely understand this... form of yours, but I do not have to."

Martin caught himself smiling. At last, a place they could all be together. Perhaps it was only the skittish folk in Ivarstead who reacted so poorly to ghosts.

"What can I call you?" Frea asked.

"Martin," he said.

"Jean. The girls are Anna Marie and Amelie," Jean said, indicating each of them in turn.

"Very well. This is good, there are more of us outside of Miraak's curse than I suspected. But if we cannot find a way to break it, there is no hope for the ones who serve him," Frea said.

They followed her down a winding path, moving slowly and carefully deeper into the temple. For the most part, it was unremarkable: the occasional draugr or spider, but nothing outlandishly out of place.

"Would you tell me of your people?" Amelie asked courteously, using her mages staff as a walking stick to keep it ready as they headed down a set of stairs.

"The Skaal have lived on Solstheim for many generations," Frea said. "Our people are tied to the land itself. We try to serve the All-Maker, to live in balance with nature, instead of exploiting it as others would."

"I see."

"Miraak was trying to take power here, and protect himself in the process," Frea went on. "Once long ago, and again now. He must be stopped... you said he tried to kill you?"

"Yes," Martin said. "We came from Skyrim. Some cultists bearing orders from him ambushed me and a friend of mine. I want to know why."

The stairs let them out in a room full of dangling cages. Bones and skulls lay scattered around beneath the bars, painting a grim picture of the room's past.

"Who were the poor souls trapped in these cages?" Frea asked. "What tortures did they suffer at Miraak's hands?"

"Reminds me of the Deadlands," Jean said quietly. "Least it's cooler, here."

Anna Marie sighed deeply, nodding. "And no daedra."

"Was this in service to the dragons, or for his own purposes?" Frea wondered.

"On the whole, I would rather not find out," Martin admitted.

The deeper they went into the temple, the more cultists and draugr they seemed to encounter. How was it that people were somehow living down here, so far from the rest of the island? But for every trap and draugr they passed over, an equal number of already-dead skeletons and corpses littered the temple.

"Is that _another_ skeleton?" Anna Marie asked, looking up. Sure enough, bones dangled from the bridge's bars above them, laced and threaded through the bars in such a way that Martin was sure its placement was not an accident.

"I do not know what gave Miraak reason to turn on his masters," said Frea, stepping over bones on the bridge. "But his path seems to have been a cruel one. I wonder if we will find some answers as to what happened so long ago."

"This almost looks like an excavation," Amelie noted as they passed into a cave lined with more bars.

"Interesting. Miraak took great pains to make it difficult to reach him, but this may be worth exploring." Frea rapped on the lid of a coffin. It slid off and fell to the floor with a clang, a restless draugr sliding out. Frea swiftly decapitated it with her axe, moving on.

Amelie peered into a bookshelf, picking up a dusty potion bottle. "I always wonder about the potions we find in these caves and ruins."

"They can't be any good," Martin said.

"No, of course not, but—"

Jean fired, his arrow narrowly passing by Frea's shoulder and hitting a cultist through one of the eyes of his mask. "Cultists!"

The excavation rose to life, cultists and dragur emerging from the woodwork. Between Frea and Anna Marie alone, half the opposition was downed in minutes. Martin heard a coffin lid clatter to the ground and turned heel, firing an arrow of his own to send the rising draugr back into death.

"Nice shot. How'd you learn?" Jean asked, impressed.

"I think I cheated. I can pick locks now, too," Martin said as Jean laughed.

"How much deeper can this be?" Frea asked, following as Martin led the way down yet another stone staircase. "I had been told that Miraak's power was great, but to have built so large a temple..."

"This must have taken a lot of work." Amelie ran her hand across the stone wall, dust falling from where she touched. "Imagine how it would look if they were to finish rebuilding it."

"The end cannot be much farther, now. I feel it in my bones."

Martin shook his head, following a faint murmuring sound coming from the bottom of the stairs. "I don't think—!" He pushed open the door at the foot of the stairs and staggered back, shocked. A dragon skeleton hung suspended from the ceiling, swaying gently in the wind caused by the door.

"Wha—oh, my." Amelie peeked over his shoulder, studying it from a distance.

"I had heard Miraak turned against the dragon cult, but to display the remains in such a manner as this..." Frea entered the room, gazing up at the dragon skeleton in a mixture of awe and terror. "It is no wonder the dragons razed his temple to the ground. Seeing the remains hung up like trophies must have enraged them to no end."

Martin looked around the room for the source of the murmuring. It had grown louder since they had entered, and he quickly saw why: a wall to the side of the room bore scratches and words.

"All praise... Miraak," Martin whispered, flipping through his well-worn book. "Glorious, something... priests..."

"What is this?" Frea asked, bending down to look at the wall. "Can you read this?"

"Just, er..." Martin turned pages back and forth, scratching in notes to himself as well. "All praise the glorious Miraak, most powerful of all priests, whose strength... grant—no, _was_ granted by the Gardener of... Kings?" he guessed.

"Anything useful?" Amelie asked him quietly.

"Maybe. It's hard to tell sometimes." Only one word truly resonated with him, the word for strength that shone somewhere in the back of his mind, but what for?

Frea straightened up, suddenly alert. "Something feels wrong. Brace yourself."

Almost immediately after Martin put away his book, the temple began to quake. The ground shook beneath them, the dragon skeleton trembling dangerously above them. The coffins lining the wall burst open.

"MOVE!" Jean aimed with his bow as Anna Marie ducked out of the way, loosing only one arrow before a sarcophagus behind him crashed open as well, throwing him off-balance. Martin threw a handful of ice at the dragon priest who emerged from the sarcophagus, following it with a quickly-launched arrow. Amelie herded Frea against the wall, hurriedly drawing symbols in the dirt with her staff.

"Bring him here!"

Anna Marie lashed out at the dragon priest, bashing him with her shield until he stumbled onto the runes. The earth beneath the priest exploded in a storm of flames and sparks, sending dust and dirt everywhere as the priest caught fire. Martin and Jean both fired arrows into the priest's skull, and watched him collapse in a pile of ashes.

"Where did you learn that one?" Martin asked curiously.

"Alenvar taught me, I traded him for Nighteye. Though he keeps looking down on me for using a staff," Amelie mused, poking through the ashes with the end of her staff.

"How rude of him."

"I suppose it all evens out... it seems like I yell at him several times a week for killing Mysticism as a school," she said, pulling something out at last. "This looks promising."

Martin bent down and retrieved a heavy metal key from the priest's ashes. "About what I've come to expect from these things."

"You fight these creatures often?" Frea asked.

"All the time. _All the time,"_ Jean told her as Martin unlocked the door behind the priest's sarcophagus. "You'd be surprised."

They wound their way past dead ends and empty rooms, over more skeletons and around statues of dragons. The deeper they went, the more Martin wondered how large the temple was.

"I wonder if there is something here that tells the story of Miraak," Frea mused.

"Most of the books here are ruined," Amelie said, leafing through one left on a table. "Our best chance at learning more of Miraak's story might be through those walls of yours, Martin."

"I don't hear any more nearby," Martin said, shaking his head. "Perhaps they are scattered around Solstheim—!" He staggered backwards again, another dragon skull suspended from the ceiling greeting him on the other side of a closed door.

"Miraak's definitely got a good number of dead dragons down here," Anna Marie noted as they started up the stone stairs that dominated the chamber. Chandeliers of fire pits hunt from chains in the chamber beyond, even more dragon skulls placed around the steps. "Do you think he killed them all?"

"I think the dragon cult had a good reason to want him dead, at least," Martin said, catching his breath. He had been trying to keep count of the dragon skulls and statuaries, and had lost his place several rooms ago. "I wonder if these date back to the Dragon War, or if they are more recent."

"If they _are_ recent, how is it that you and Miraak have never crossed paths before?" Amelie asked. "You and Desmond are Skyrim's most recognized dragon hunters. Surely someone killing this many dragons wouldn't be able to keep it quiet."

"True—"

A rumbling sound cut him off, the sound of crashing stone coming from above. They all dove for cover, the guttural roaring of draugr joining the mix. Martin and Amelie found shelter behind a center column of the staircase, Martin shoving a lone draugr who had the same idea into the onslaught of heavy rocks that tumbled past them.

The rockfall subsided, and the resumed the trek up the stairs. Martin hesitated before following the rest of the group up the stairs, listening hard.

"How big is this place?" Jean wondered, looking back down the stairs. "I thought it was big from the outside, but this place must be _massive."_

"What is it?" Anna Marie asked. "Martin?"

"Do you hear that?" Martin paused again, straining to hear. "That... noise."

"What noise? Another wall?"

He shook his head. "No."

"Dragon?"

_"Everyone_ would have heard that."

"What, then?"

Martin shrugged. "I cannot tell. It sounds like... like knocking, or beating."

Anna Marie frowned. "I don't hear it. Are you sure it's not just cave noise?"

"No, I definitely hear something," he told them. "Can you not hear it?"

The others stopped before a door, listening intently.

"Nothing," Amelie concluded.

"I hear nothing," Frea agreed.

"I don't hear anything, but sometimes it's hard to tell in a ruin like this," Jean said, leading the way forward.

"I know I hear _something_," he insisted, pushing the door open.

A shrine-like pedestal stood on a grated floor, set over smoldering coals. Sitting on the shrine was a large, black book. The pulsing, knocking sound was coming from between the pages.

"There are dark magics at work here," Frea said uneasily, hanging back. "Ready yourself."

"This is it." Martin approached the shrine, looking at the book. "It's this."

"The book?" Amelie raised an eyebrow. "Making noise?"

"Do you hear it?"

Amelie leaned in a bit, quiet. "...No. But perhaps I am just old and deaf."

"You are not _old_, my dear."

"I am two hundred and fifty!"

"You're two hundred thirty-seven," Jean corrected.

"Oh, what a difference." Amelie stepped back, throwing a quick glare in Jean's direction. "Whatever the case, I'm not sure I trust any book that speaks to you and only you."

"It's not _speech,_ just..." Martin reached out to pick up the book. It was heavy and dusty, and unsettlingly warm in his hands. He thought he felt it moving ever so slightly, as if there was something trapped within the leather cover.

"This book..." Frea looked over his shoulder at it, frowning deeply. "It seems wrong, somehow. Here, yet not."

"Have you ever seen anything like it?"

Frea shook her head. "No. It may be what we seek."

Martin flipped open the cover of the book, reading. _The eyes, once bleached by falling stars of utmost revelation, will forever see—_

Shouting from around him. Anna Marie, Jean, and Amelie had all violently recoiled as if in pain, each vanishing in turn. A panicked Frea backed away, roots or tentacles reaching up from the pages of the book to grab Martin by the shoulders. The words on the page vanished in a dark blur along with the world around him, stranding him for a moment in a dark void_._

What came into focus as he looked around, disoriented and confused, made no sense. He had left behind the room of smoldering coals, a vast green sky stretching overhead in place of the dusty temple's vaulted ceilings. Giant creatures made of roots or tentacles floated behind a man who spoke in an authoritative voice, making the noise that had led them to the book. A dragon with a flat, snakelike head sat nearby, apparently listening to whoever was speaking.

"...the time comes soon when—what?"

Martin felt rooted to the ground, unable to process whatever was happening fast enough for him to react. The man who spoke shot him with sparks, forcing Martin to his knees.

"Who are you to dare set foot here?" demanded the stranger, standing over him.

Martin's head was still spinning. The stranger looked down on him, expression unreadable behind a bone mask that resembled a mess of tentacles. "Are you Miraak?"

"...Ah. You are Dragonborn. I can feel it. And yet..."

Martin stayed quiet, briefly considering firing a bolt of lightning or taking up his bow. Miraak studied him for a long moment, the tentacle beasts behind him hovering lazily off the ground.

"So you have slain Alduin. Well done." Miraak straightened up, a tone in his voice that suggested he meant no compliment. "I could have slain him myself, back when I walked the earth, but I chose a different path. You have no idea of the true power a Dragonborn can wield!"

"Dragonborn?"

Miraak turned from Martin and Shouted an unfamiliar Shout to summon strange, glowing armor. "This realm is beyond you, you have no power here. And it is only a matter of time before Solstheim is also mine... I already control the minds of its people. Soon they will finish building my temple, and I can return home." He walked off towards the dragon, leaving Martin on the ground. "Send him back where he came from," he said to the beasts. "He can await my arrival with the rest of Tamriel."

The tentacle beasts had narrow black eyes and teeth in horrifyingly impossible places, lining what appeared to be a mouth in their torsos. They had two sets of hands that hit him with unfamiliar blasts of magic as the dragon in the background took flight, Miraak on his back.

Martin recoiled from the magic that ferociously stung and burned, but left no mark on his skin. Miraak's strange world blurred and dissipated, as though steam had simply obstructed his vision. The warmth of the coals returned, as did Frea's panicked voice.

"Are you... are you all right? Martin!"

"I'm fine," he said immediately, shaking his head to clear his mind. "Is everything all right?"

"What happened to you?" Frea asked, eyes wide. "You read the book, and then... It seemed as though you were not really here. I could see you, but also see _through_ you!"

Martin tried to reconcile what Frea had seen with what he had experienced. None of it made sense. "I'm not really sure what happened. I saw Miraak, on a dragon."

"Where? Where is he?" she demanded, the passion for vengeance rekindled behind her eyes. "Can we reach him? Can we _kill_ him?"

"No," Martin said, looking down. He still held the black book in his hands. "Reading this book took me to wherever he is."

Frea looked down at it as well. "This is a dangerous thing, then. We should return to my village and show this to my father... Perhaps Storn can make sense of what is going on. Come, there looks be a way out of here."

Frea led the way. Martin followed her, shoving the book into his rucksack and sinking into thought. An enemy they knew little about, who possessed the Voice and _apparently_ a tame dragon? This was spelling bigger trouble than they had anticipated very quickly. Then again... wherever Martin was concerned, trouble seemed to follow.


	3. Past and Future

**Past and Future**

To Martin's surprise, there was snow on the ground outside the temple. He and Frea emerged far from where the Temple of Miraak had begun, and again he wondered just how big the temple was.

"Where have they gone?" Frea asked curiously. "Your friends?"

"I can..." He took a deep breath. _**"KAAL!"**_

Jean descended, bow at the ready and panic in his eyes. "What happened?" he demanded. "Are you ok, what was—?"

"I'm fine," Martin said. "I don't know what happened, but the book—I saw Miraak."

"It took you somewhere?"

"No," Frea said. "He was still, but I saw through him. He stayed, but did not. It was very strange."

Jean chewed his tongue, hanging his bow over his shoulder and walking with them. "That thing sounds dangerous."

"We will take the book to Storn," Frea said. "He may know something that can help us further."

"What happened to you when I read it?" Martin asked Jean.

Jean shrugged. "Damned if I know. Hurt, though."

"Are you—"

"We're fine," Jean said immediately. "Stop worrying."

Frea led the way over a bridge and along the path to Skaal Village. A spiral cloud hung over the village, the magical barrier that she spoke of.

"Can we...?"

"We can pass through the barrier," Frea assured him. "The barrier protects us, it does not keep us out."

Skaal Village was a small place of wind and snow, modest wooden buildings dotting the cold hill. A few people were sitting in what looked to be the town center, gathered around a shimmering pillar of magic that was producing the wind and the clouds above.

Frea ran ahead to the group, crouching beside one of the seated people to speak to him. Martin and Jean hung back, uncertain.

"Call us later?" Jean suggested nervously, looking around at the people milling around the village center. "I mean... Frea's all right, but I hate people."

Martin nodded. "Let them know we're safe," he directed. Jean bowed his head and vanished into the wind.

"Father! I have returned!" Frea shouted over the wind. "There is yet hope!"

"Frea?" The man she spoke to looked up at her. "What news do you bring? Is there a way to free our people?"

Frea shook her head, standing back up. "No, but I have brought someone who has seen things. He has confirmed that Miraak is indeed behind the suffering of our people."

Storn stayed seated, his hands trembling slightly from the effort of whatever magic he cast. "I feared that it would be so."

"But how is that possible?" Frea asked. "After all this time?"

"I fear there is too much we do not yet know."

Frea turned back to Martin, tugging him towards the group. "Please, tell Storn what has happened."

Storn was an elderly man, his hair white with age rather than snow. His eyes were tired and drained, but watched Martin approach with a cautious alertness. "So you have seen things, yes?" Storn asked. "My magic grows weak, and so does the barrier around our village. Time is short, tell me what you know."

Martin sat down in the snow, resting his hands on his knees. "I've seen Miraak," he said.

"Really? How?"

"I read a book in Miraak's temple," Martin said. "It took me somewhere else. Miraak was there."

Storn pulled a face, returning his attention to the magic barrier. "The legends speak of that place. Terrible battles fought at the temple, the dragons burning it to the ground in rage. They speak also of something worse than dragons buried within. Difficult to imagine, but if true... It means what I feared has come to pass."

"What?"

"Miraak was never truly gone, and now has returned." Storn's focus did not break from the barrier. "If you could go to this place and see him... Are you like Miraak? Are you Dragonborn?"

"I am the Dragonborn," Martin confirmed, confused.

"Perhaps you are connected with him. The old tales say that he, too, was Dragonborn."

Martin furrowed his brow, now growing more afraid that confused. "What does it mean if we're both Dragonborn?"

"I am unsure. It may mean that you could save us, or it may mean that you could bring about our destruction," Storn told him.

"Wha—"

"But our time here is running out. The few of us left free from control cannot protect ourselves for much longer." Storn turned to look at him, his face grave. "You must go to Saering's Watch. Learn there the word that Miraak learned long ago, and use that knowledge on the Wind Stone. You may be able to break the hold on our people there, and free them from control."

Martin's lips moved as he repeated the directions to himself, so as not to forget them. "Wind Stone... What do you mean, _free them from control?"_ he asked.

"Some dark influence wields power over them, forces them to forget themselves and act against their nature," Storn said.

"That sounds familiar. There is a stone in Raven Rock, people have been possessed or, or forced to work there," Martin said.

Storn nodded. "At first it was only during the night, but now every moment is spent building some strange shrine around the Wind Stone. I believe if the shrine can be destroyed, the Skaal will be free once more."

"If I learn this word..." Martin fell silent. Perhaps he could break the force around whatever possessed the Skaal, and return to Raven Rock and free them as well. "Why do I need a word? Is it a Shout?"

This clearly meant nothing to Storn. "Miraak is behind what is happening to our village, and so the knowledge he has gained as Dragonborn is at the heart of it," he said simply.

"What do you know about Miraak?" Martin asked.

"Much of what was known has been lost to the ages. He was Dragonborn, and yet he served the dragons as a priest in their order, highly esteemed and very powerful. Then he turned against them, becoming something they feared. He was defeated long ago, but it seems he was never really destroyed."

Martin listened in silence, uneasy. This was an unsettlingly familiar tale.

"You are Dragonborn as well," Storn reminded him. "You too can wield this power he has, perhaps to a better end. Put an end to this evil magic before it consumes us all."

* * *

"What do you need?" she asked, as she often did on arriving. Martin had taken off for Saering's Watch, high on a mountain. Anna Marie, Jean, and Amelie now followed.

"I need you to come with me."

"Where to?" Jean asked.

"Saering's Watch. There sounds to be a wall there," he explained. "I need it."

"Why?"

Martin relayed everything he knew, about Miraak and the book, the dragon priest and the power over the shrines. The trio listened in silence, varying expressions of concern on their faces.

"You find anything about him?" Jean asked quietly. Amelie shook her head.

"But now I think we have a better idea of where to look. Tar-Meena and I have searched for stranger things before."

"You found Tar-Meena?" Anna Marie asked. "When?"

"Not too long ago. Goodness, I've missed her. We almost have the whole band back together," Amelie laughed. "We're still missing Traven, but I have a sinking feeling as to why."

"Have you rebuilt the entire Arcane University?" Martin asked curiously.

Amelie shook her head, smiling. "Not in so many words. Aetherius is strange. We find ways to keep it interesting and comfortable for us. Between the lot of us, we are bound to find something sooner or later."

They fell into easy chatter as they climbed up towards Saering's Watch, discussing old friends and new information, the book and this other Dragonborn. Martin asked after Aleius ("his name is _Alenvar_, I don't know why you insist on calling him that"), and politely after his father ("he's gone off somewhere into the heart of Aetherius, we don't really speak"). He asked if Uriel had gone off with some other woman, which made them laugh.

"Full disclosure," Jean said finally. They did this some days, using time spent traveling as a way to get the truth from one another. "Amelie Rose."

"Hm?"

"What did you do with all the gold?"

"...Mm?" she hummed, following Martin up a sloped path.

"The keys and the gold! In the house," Jean prompted. "Everything. You didn't forget about it, did you?"

"Oh. That? No, of course not." She planted her staff in the ground, walking briskly to keep up with the group. "I never _did_ anything with it, but no, I didn't forget."

"What—? What does that mean?"

Amelie shrugged innocently. "I happened to tell Methredhel that I would be in the Imperial City for a while when I told her you'd died, and wouldn't you know it—"

_"You sold me out to that Bosmer cutpurse, you—"_

Amelie and Anna Marie laughed, dodging out of the way as Jean threw a handful of ice at them. Martin valiantly suppressed a smile, ducking away from a snowball that Anna Marie threw in retaliation.

"Half the Guild probably swarmed the place!" Jean snapped. "Did they leave _anything?"_

"No, and it's a good thing, too," Amelie declared. "It was in _desperate_ need of redecorating, Hieronymus and I received some truly lovely wedding gifts."

Jean threw up his hands, yelling incoherently.

"Truth or lie," Anna Marie shot at him. "There's still a giant trove of gold somewhere that _you forgot about—"_

"What in the world possessed you to hide gold out and about Cyrodiil?" Amelie demanded, turning around to poke Jean in the chest with her staff. "Were you intending to send the Thieves Guild on a treasure hunt all along the borders?"

"At least I started hiding it in the house," Jean spat

"Are you a squirrel? Why hide it in the first place?"

Martin laughed, earning him a punch on the shoulder from Jean.

"Don't you dare laugh," Anna Marie said, half-serious. "We were broke for _years_ because he forgot where he'd buried all our gold."

"You _forgot?"_ Martin asked him.

"You know, now that I think about it," Jean mused. "It's probably somewhere in Split... no wonder we never found it."

Anna Marie sighed over-dramatically while Amelie whacked him with her staff, launching into an impassioned, mostly sarcastic lecture. Martin fought back another laugh, glad as always to see everyone happy. Easy conversation made him feel better about the world.

Their laughter gave way as the roar of a dragon greeted them near the peak of the mountain. The unmistakable sounds of dragonfire close by sent them scattering, scanning the horizons to find it before it found them.

_**"JOOR ZAH FRUL!"**_ Martin found it first, Shouting the dragon down into the dirt and snow. A few armored draugr climbed up the slope towards it, longswords and ice in hand.

"Should've waited it out," Jean said, shooting one of the farther draugr before it could approach them.

Martin and Anna Marie raced forward to take on the dragon, leaving Amelie and Jean to tackle the draugr. By now, dragon hunting had become routine enough to be uninteresting: Anna Marie tended to rush ahead of him to carve blood out of its scales, while Martin pitched ice and flames at it from afar.

A chanting distracted him from the fight, taking his attention away from the dragon enough for him to narrowly miss being set on fire. Martin dove out of the way, sprinting a little ways up the mountain to take a look at the wall.

"Commemorates... Bhar the Earth-Hunter..." Martin read as much as he could before getting stuck, fumbling with his book as more sounds of steel and dragonfire came from behind him. "Strong... slave?... Earth—!"

"MARTIN, CAN'T THAT WAIT FOR TWO MINUTES?" Anna Marie shouted at him. He heard talons digging into the ground, draugr roaring as lightning struck it.

"Become old... instead... balance... wise—_**JOOR ZAH FRUL!"**_ he Shouted, throwing the words over his shoulder and forcing the dragon back down to earth. He dropped his book back in his bag as he turned around, drawing an arrow and firing into its wing. "Got it!"

Amelie was locked in combat with a draugr in a horned helm, her staff held out before her to cross with its longsword. She shoved back against it, sending it off-balance and firing a handful of lightning at it. Jean shot an arrow into its neck, felling it beside the dead dragon.

The dragon's scales and skin went up in flames, evaporating off its bones into thin air and racing away from them. Martin frowned. Something was wrong.

"Wait—"

"This dragon's soul belongs to me." Miraak had materialized out of thin air. He was blurry, transparent, not all there, as Frea had described. He absorbed the dragon's soul instead of Martin while they stared on in shock. "One step closer to my return."

He vanished in a blast of magic as suddenly as he had arrived, leaving the four of them utterly confused.

Jean broke the silence first. "What in Oblivion was that? Was that him?"

"Miraak." Martin scowled at the dragon's skeleton, feeling cheated. "Dragonborn, indeed. We should keep moving."

"Did you get—"

"I got the word," Martin said. "I don't know what it does, but I do have it."

They were quiet on the descent, sobered by Miraak's appearance. It was one thing to hear the stories of a powerful priest, and another to see him—and yet, _not_ see him—steal the soul of the dragon from right in front of them. Martin sank deeper into thought, reaching the inevitable conclusion that a fight between him and Miraak was bound to happen at some point.

* * *

"Now through him do we see." The Skaal surrounding the Wind Stone chanted their strange mantra to Miraak, building the shrine and refusing to break from their paths.

"Is this a good idea?" Anna Marie asked. "Do you think it's enough?"

"It will have to be," Martin said dismally. "If not, then I have nothing else to try."

"We could just set it on fire, that'd probably get them running," Jean suggested.

Anna Marie punched him. "We're not setting it on fire."

"Stand back," Martin directed. "I have no idea what this will do."

The three stepped back away from him, keeping a close eye out.

_**"GOL!"**_

The stone pillar began to glow red as the word hit it. Cracks appeared in the rock, the people surrounding it dropping their tools in confusion. In a great burst of light, the stone blasted apart, a tall creature with impossibly sharp claws and teeth rising from the shallow water surrounding the stone. It reared back its head, spitting sickly green spray at them.

Martin frantically backpedaled and fired from a distance, lightning and fire joining the fray to take the thing down. The Skaal quickly scattered, freed from the spell that kept them there, dashing off towards Skaal Village and leaving them to handle the beast.

It stomped on the ground, pulling familiar, sickly green roots or tentacles up from the earth that waved and flailed dangerously at anyone who happened to be around. Martin froze for a split second, thinking back. The last time he had seen such strange, sickly tendrils... He threw ice and fire at it, keeping a safe distance until it melted into a puddle of nothingness.

"What was that?" Anna Marie asked.

"Certainly not Miraak." Martin peered down at the puddle, looking for keys or something else important. There were gems and gold, which seemed to make Jean happy, but nothing important. "At least that's done."

"Where did it come from?" Amelie was cautiously poking at the water, finding nothing but shallow stone. "If it wasn't Miraak? It almost looked daedric, but lurking in the ground like that..."

Martin held his tongue.

"Whatever it is, it's gone," Jean said decisively. "Come on."

* * *

Amelie accompanied him into the village, the pair of them waving politely to Frea as Martin led her into the shaman's hut. Storn greeted them with a relaxed smile, the burden of keeping the barrier up gone.

"The air is different. You have prevailed, I can feel it," he said.

Martin nodded. "Your people are free."

"So it is. You have proven yourself an ally to the Skaal, and so the Skaal shall be allies to you."

Martin sat down at the table with him, watching Amelie and Frea conversing down the hall out of the corner of his eye. "What now?" he asked Storn.

"If you have released the wind stone and broken the hold on my people, perhaps you can do the same for the rest of Solstheim." Storn offered him a piece of bread, which he gladly took. "I doubt it will fully stop whatever Miraak is doing, but it may slow his progress."

Martin frowned, thinking this over. "That's all well and good, but I need him stopped."

"I cannot help with that. None here can," Storn said, shaking his head.

"Then how am I to succeed?"

"You will need the knowledge Miraak himself learned. You will need to learn more about this Black Book."

"Tell me more about it." Martin took it out of his bag, setting it carefully on the table for Storn to look over.

Storn squinted down at the book, studying it. "Miraak had this?"

"It was in his Temple when Frea and I went through it."

"This does not look like something of the Dragon cult," Storn told him, shaking his head again. "It is a dark thing, unnatural. I would have nothing to do with it. But the Dark Elf wizard, Neloth... he came to us some time ago, asking about Black Books."

"Neloth, hm."

"Seek him out to the south," Storn instructed, pointing it out on Martin's map of Solstheim. "I believe he knows a great deal about them. But be cautious, Dragonborn. There is something else at work here. You are now walking the same road as Miraak."

Martin took the book back and replaced it in his bag, a sinking feeling in the knots in his stomach. "Why do you think Neloth can help me?"

"He is also searching for them," Storn told him. "In fact, he has already found one. He showed it to me when he came here, it was very like the one you found. A thing of dark magic, not of the All-Maker."

Martin sat back in his chair, a frown firmly etched on his face. "I... this will sound strange, but I was a priest where we came from. I _am_ a priest of Skyrim," he added quickly. "But I have never encountered anything about the All-Maker before."

Storn's expression was unreadable. "You are an outsider, and I don't know if I can make you understand, but I will try. The All-Maker is the maker of all things, and it is from the All-Maker that life flow, like a great river. As all rivers must return to the sea, so all life returns in time to the All-Maker."

Martin nodded, still frowning. "That's..."

"I know our ways must seem strange to you, but the nine gods of the Empire are equally strange to us," Storn pointed out gently. "I am the Skaal's shaman, and I serve as a guide and a healer as well as a keeper of our traditions. I remind the Skall to live as one with nature and to honor the will of the All-Maker, so that we'll be worthy to join him in death."

Martin felt a hand on his shoulder. "We should get going," Amelie said.

"Right. Yes, we should," Martin said, standing up. "If we are to... find anything about these books, we should go."

Storn and Frea saw them to the door, smiling politely.

"May darkness never touch you," Storn blessed pleasantly.

Martin forced a smile as they turned to leave.

"Shall we go find Neloth?" Amelie asked.

"Not yet." Martin looked around the village, pleasantly lit by the setting sun. "Perhaps we should find a place to stay."

Amelie crossed her arms. "Skaal Village does not seem like the kind of place to have an inn for visitors."

Martin shrugged, opening up a door at random. It led to a great hall, with only two people inside. A finely dressed, elderly man sat at a table, scribbling on some paper, and a woman stood by the fire, warming her hands.

"Hello there!" came a voice from the gentleman, as he turned around and waved to them. "Ah, the man with the Voice from the stone. You're a welcome sight."

"I'm glad everything seems back to normal," Martin said, entering the hall with Amelie behind him.

"Could I ask your name?" the gentleman asked, rising from his chair to speak with them.

"My name is Martin."

"Amelie."

"I am Tharstan," said the gentleman, beaming pleasantly at them. "I never thought to see other outsiders here in Skaal Village."

"You're not one of the Skaal?"

"Oh no, most certainly not." Tharstan nodded to the book on the table he was scribbling on. Amelie peered down at it, scanning the words on the paper. "I'm here to learn about the history of Solstheim," he said. "Solstheim is a fascinating place, but we know so little about its past. There are many mysteries that remain unsolved."

"Such as that stone everyone was building over?" Amelie asked, still reading.

"Yes, that was a most disturbing experience. The architecture was strange, almost otherworldly." Tharstan frowned. "Given that, and the considerable power it must have taken to affect our minds so completely, it would suggest the work of a powerful mage. Either that, or perhaps a daedra. If so, then may the Nine protect us."

"Do you think a Prince might have something to do with it?" Martin asked hesitantly.

Tharstan shrugged. "The more powerful among the daedra can exert their influence within our world, Princes especially. And when they do, men inevitably suffer."

Amelie cast him a glance. Martin cleared his throat, shaking his head. "Tharstan, is there somewhere I might sleep in the village?" he asked.

Tharstan shook his head. "You might ask Storn or some of the others to put you up, but there's not a lot of extra space here in the village. You might be better off heading back to Raven Rock and finding a room there."

"We should really get moving if we have to make that journey before it gets too late," Amelie put in.

"Right. Yes, let's be off."

Amelie led the way from the great hall, searching for the moon or a star to get their bearings.

* * *

"The moonlight is lovely."

Amelie smiled faintly, walking beside him on the way to Windhelm. Martin had decided instead to search the College of Winterhold for ideas before going to the wizard: if there was any place in Tamriel that had information on anything forbidden, Aleius and Urag were bound to have hidden it away somewhere. And besides, if forbidden knowledge was what it took to overthrow Miraak's plans, where better to find it? "It is when it's clear out."

Martin looked up. There was a light veil of clouds over patches of the sky, obscuring some of the stars he knew well. Memories of a night long since past came back to him, spent on the ramparts of a temple and pointing out constellations.

"I've missed these stars," she said suddenly. "A few centuries of madly spinning stars makes these look so peaceful and lovely."

"Do you remember them?" he asked.

"I am not _stupid,_ Martin."

"I know, but that wasn't the question."

She lightly hit his shoulder with the bulb of her staff. "I remember."

"Your lovely Lady," he pointed out, high above them. She laughed.

"I've missed her dearly. And all the rest of them."

Martin bit his lip, knowing full well he was going to regret bringing this up again. "I have always thought you looked lovely under the moonlight."

To his relief, her tired smile did not fade, but his relief was short-lived. "That's not fair," she said, her thumb twisting her wedding ring on her finger.

"Why is that?"

"You can say all you like about how _I_ look, but it has been centuries since I last saw you. I cannot remember what you look like."

Martin's heart plummeted. "Nor can I."

"I always knew Jean would look better with longer hair, though," she mused, looking him over. "But I suppose that's no compliment to you."

He shrugged half-heartedly. "It sort of counts. I'm going to look like this for the rest of my life, after all."

He paused at the gates that led into Windhelm, turning to face her.

"Ami—"

"Bring us all back when you get to the College," she said. "I'm sure Alenvar will have a long list of things he'd like us to look up."

"Yes. Of course, I'll..." He forced a smile again. "I'll see you tomorrow."

She curtsied to him, and vanished as he pushed open the doors.

* * *

One of the best feelings was when he said something and one of them laughed, because once one of them laughed it would spread to the others, almost without fail. Anna Marie might smile and start to giggle, then Jean would snicker in kind and Amelie's smile would light up her face as they all started laughing.

Another was when he said something and she dipped her head, smiling down at her hands folded in her lap. She would say something in response, and he would smile at her until she lifted her head to look at him. There was nothing so beautiful and so joyful as making her happy, making them all happy. There was nothing so amazing and heartening as the smiles of those he loved.

He loved to feel the velvet of her skin, tenderly tracing the scars on her shoulders and brushing her hair out of her face. He loved the way the curve of her waist fit in his hand, the feel of her fingertips at the hinge of his jaw, and the smell of flowers from the coast in her hair. He loved to hold her hands, her fingers tracing the lines of palms and lacing together with his.

The worst feeling, by far, was sitting up in the dark and feeling the happiness drain from his heart as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, empty and alone. He would try to hold on to these pieces of happiness, to build something that gave him joy with these flashes and fragments of memories he wished he had, and always failed.

Whenever he dreamt of her, she was in dazzlingly vivid color, but whenever he summoned her, she was the same ghostly, pale shade of blue. He would dream of her in color and in joy, talking and laughing and smiling freely as a friend. But when he called her to his side, she wore a ring and carried a staff, and almost always asked him, "What do you need?"

And of course, he could never tell her, "I need _you."_


	4. The Inner Present

**The Inner Present**

"Are you all right?"

Martin stared down at the book he was flipping through, searching for anything about Black Books. All four of them had been searching for days, to absolutely no avail. "Fine. Bit of a rough night, that's all."

"You said that yesterday." Amelie frowned at him from across the Arcaneum, books and scrolls in hand. "I thought you said you weren't having any more nightmares."

"I'm not."

"Are you really—"

_"Fine_," he insisted, closing his book. "Have you found anything?"

"Nothing," Anna Marie sighed from across the table.

"Nothing here," Jean agreed.

Amelie resumed shelving the books she was carrying. "Plenty of interesting things, but nothing relevant. What I wouldn't give to spend a bit more time here..."

"If we found something useful, we'd _have_ to," Jean muttered bitterly, flipping a book closed on the table he sat at. "But it looks like we'll have to go back for the wizard."

"Right." Martin got up, finding his book's place on the wall of shelves. "Back to Raven Rock, I suppose."

"Did you want to get back to the house and make sure everything's all right?" Jean prompted.

Martin shook his head. "No. It will be fine, we have more pressing matters to attend to."

Jean raised an eyebrow. "Sure?"

"I'm sure. Let's go."

They left the Arcaneum and the College behind, braving the perpetual storm that surrounded Winterhold. Windhelm in the south was bound to be a little brighter, but no less stormy. Martin sighed, and led the way.

* * *

"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU."

"He needs help!" Martin snapped, walking a bit faster. After a tumultuous trip on the Northern Maiden, Martin had reached Raven Rock and immediately set out to the east to find the wizard, passing by the ash-buried barrow in the way.

"Draugr, fine," Jean shot back, "but more gold? Are you trying to go broke again?"

Martin threw up his hands. "Would you rather I stay behind and dig that place out myself? Ralis seems like a good man—"

"Ralis _seems_ like a con man!" Jean corrected. "Thousands of gold, and what in Oblivion do you expect to get for it?"

"That's enough!" Anna Marie shouted over them. "It's Martin's decision, he can do what he wants. Right?"

"Are you all so determined not to talk about the apparently immortal Falx Carius?" Amelie asked, either not paying attention or not caring about their discussion. "That seems like the more interesting affair. Ash spawn and long-dead Legionnaires, I should think that Captain Veleth—"

"I am not discussing _anything_ further," Martin scoffed. "We can deal with Ralis and Fort Frostmoth later, right now we need to find Neloth and square away these Black Books."

There was a giant mushroom on the horizon as they walked nearer to where Storn had directed them. A pair of Dunmer were arguing near what appeared to be a ramp that led to a door within the mushroom.

"Is this...?" Amelie looked up at the mushroom, awed. "Does he live here?

Martin shrugged. "I must admit, a giant mushroom does seem like a sturdy, safe place."

"Maybe you should grow one," Jean said sullenly. "It'd be better than wasting half a forest's worth of lumber."

One of the elves, a woman in green finery, spoke to them as they approached. "Excuse me. We don't get many visitors. Is there something you need?"

"What is this place?" Martin asked.

"Tel Mithryn. It's the home of Master Neloth," she said. "You may have heard of him, he's a Telvanni master-wizard. I'm his steward, Varona, I manage the day to day affairs."

"May we see him?"

Varona nodded up the ramp to the door. "He's up through there."

Martin led the way into the giant mushroom, entering a small room hung with lanterns. A faint blue river of magic flowed upwards from a glowing rune on the ground, leading to a high ledge where another lantern hung.

"How...?"

Amelie hopped into the river of magic. It carried her effortlessly upward, letting her land gently on the ledge. "Come on, then," she called down to them.

Martin followed suit. The magic was pleasantly breezy against his back as he flew up to the ledge, landing beside her. The rest of the tower was lit by lanterns and stacked with books and furniture. The Dark Elf man in red robes they had met outside of Raven Rock was poring over a book at a table of alchemy ingredients.

"Oh, we are going to be _friends,_ Neloth," Amelie breathed, looking around the wizard's tower while the other two floated up form the door. "I think I like you already."

"You two again." The wizard stood up, looking them over. "Didn't I see you in Raven Rock?"

"I think we've met, yes," Martin said, taking in the scope of the tower. There were shelves laden with books, tables and desks stacked with all manner of experiments, research, and concoctions. Neloth was certainly a busy man.

"I see you brought more friends." Neloth looked them over, somehow both intrigued and disapproving. "If you're going to be up here, stay out of my way."

"I heard you know where to find Black Books," Martin said. "Is that true?"

"You refer to the tomes of esoteric knowledge that old Hermaeus Mora has scattered throughout the world?" Neloth asked, tossing his book back down on the table. "Is this somehow connected to your search for Miraak?"

Martin's stomach turned unpleasantly as soon as Neloth named the Prince. "The Black Books have something to do with Hermaeus Mora?"

"You didn't know?" Neloth demanded, peering down his nose at Martin. "Hm. I thought it was obvious. Hermaeus Mora has always tried to seduce mortals into his service with the lure of forbidden knowledge."

"What do you know?" Amelie asked, peeking at the desk where Neloth had an assortment of alchemy ingredients laid out.

"No one really knows where the Black Books came from. Some appear to have been written far in the past, others might be from the future." Neloth slid a mortar of some sort of purple jelly out of her reach. "Apparently time is more malleable if you're the Daedric Prince of fate and destiny."

Martin scowled. He hadn't had a pleasant relationship with fate and destiny since long before his stint in Kvatch. Was this why? "I've found one book already, I need to find more."

"Found one?" Neloth turned around and crossed the distance between him and Martin in two long strides, examining him closely in a blatant lack of respect for personal space.

Martin backed up a few paces, nearly toppling over the edge of the ledge. "Yes."

"And you read it too, didn't you?" Neloth asked, a grin spreading across his face. "Don't try to deny it. You've got the look, I can see it now."

"Is that... bad?" Martin asked tentatively.

Neloth backed away, still grinning. "Dangerous knowledge is still knowledge, and therefore useful. Usually turns out to be the most useful, in my experience."

Amelie raised her head from her examination of the alchemy desk, alarmed. Martin shook his head at her before she could speak. "I have to know what Miraak knows if I'm going to stop him," he said.

"Now _that_ is a dangerous path indeed," Neloth reminded him. "Hermaeus Mora gives nothing away for free. You may end up like Miraak, of course. Two power-mad Dragonborn... it could be very interesting."

Behind Neloth's back, Amelie's expression grew worried. _Interesting?_ she mouthed at Martin, letting her hands fall to her sides with a huff when he shook his head again.

"Do you know where I can find another Black Book?" Martin asked.

"Oh yes. They're not hard to locate once you know how to look for them, I have one here that I've been using to locate more."

"You have one? May I see—"

"I haven't been idle while this fascinating madness engulfed Solstheim," Neloth went on. "But my book isn't what you're looking for. I'm quite sure it is unconnected with this Miraak. But..." Neloth turned around, beginning to gather up potions and tossing them into an empty bag that sat by the ledge. "I do know where to find a Black Book that can help you."

"Why won't the book here help?"

"Oh, it is _clearly_ not associated with the same power that has overtaken the island," Neloth said matter-of-factly, continuing to throw things into his bag. "And I'm not talking about Hermaeus Mora, these Black Books are _all_ his, of course. No, what you're looking for is a _specific_ book. Presumably because Miraak's power derives from it."

"Where do we find it?" Martin asked, watching him toss bottles and scrolls into his bag.

"I haven't been able to get it, but maybe together we can unlock the secrets the Dwemer left behind."

"Dwemer?"

"Forbidden knowledge was somewhat of a specialty of the dwarves, eh. You don't think they would just leave it alone, do you?" Neloth picked up a staff that was leaning against a bookshelf, slinging his bag over his shoulder. "It seems the ancient Dwemer discovered this book and took it to study, I found their reading room in the ruins of Nchardak. The book is there, but it is sealed in a protective case that I wasn't able to open."

Slightly speechless, Martin nodded. "Lead on," he said, watching Jean and Anna Marie jump off the ledge to leave the mushroom. "Between all of us, we are sure to be able to open it."

"To Nchardak, then." Neloth stepped off the ledge, descending gracefully to the door and following the ghosts outside.

"Do you trust him?" Amelie asked as Martin hopped off the ledge in turn.

"I thought you liked him," he pointed out.

"I like his tower full of books and experiments_._ Do you _trust_ him?" she asked again, landing delicately beside him.

"He can lead us to a book, that's all I need him to do. It doesn't matter if I trust him," Martin said, pushing open the door.

"But—"

"So! You chose today to die!" Neloth hollered. More yelling and dragonfire greeted them just outside Tel Mithryn, Jean and Anna Marie already combating a sleek black dragon that had sent the steward sprinting into another tower of the giant mushroom.

"Duty calls," Amelie said, the pair of them breaking into a run to join the others. "As always."

They fell easily into a sort of routine, playing to their strengths with the addition of Neloth's spells. The dragon was no match for five seasoned warriors.

"Dagons's eyeballs, but you're an ugly one, aren't you?" Neloth said, watching the dragon fall to the ground. It went up in flames as they always did, skin and scales dissipating into streams of magic that flowed away from Tel Mithryn and towards a blur of color.

Martin drew an arrow, firing as Miraak reappeared to steal the dragon's soul. The arrow went through Miraak's blurry, transparent form, embedding in Tel Mithryn's side wall.

Miraak laughed, the blur fading away. "It takes a strong will to command a dragon's soul. Perhaps you aren't as powerful as you think."

Martin squeezed his bow, fighting the urge to throw it over the dragon's skull at Miraak's retreating outline. Neloth tossed a fireball over his shoulder at the bone blocking the ramp to Tel Mithryn.

"Was that—"

"Let's go," Martin said, cutting Neloth off with a glare. "Where to?"

* * *

The reading room hummed with a strange noise, technology or energy buzzing through the air. It looked very similar to the Oculory where the Elder Scroll had been. Sunk into the ground was a pocket covered by a panel of glass, a Black Book clearly visible on a pedestal beneath it.

Martin and Neloth were dripping wet, soaked to the skin with oily water and generally displeased with the entire trip through Nchardak. Aggravatingly, the three heroes had somehow managed to avoid staying wet. Perhaps it was a perk of death. Martin stood, shivering and still seething as Neloth examined a control panel. "What now?"

"What a trip. Now," Neloth said, wringing out his sleeves and pressing a button. "It should be as simple as... that should do it."

Starlight shone in from above, reflecting into four blue windows around the room. The glass over the book opened, and the pedestal rose out of the ground. Neloth laughed, clearly pleased.

"At last! I hope it was worth it," he said. "Please, be my guest. You deserve the first look... and besides, it could be very dangerous. These books are known to drive many people insane."

"Martin," Amelie interjected before he could touch it. "Do me a favor."

"You should leave," he said, remembering what had happened the first time.

"Favor," she said again. "Call me when you're... there. Or wherever."

He frowned at her. "Why?"

"I just want to see if you can." She shrugged. "Frea said you were still physically present, but something jerked the three of us back to Aetherius anyway. Perhaps you can bring us to wherever you are. Call it research or something."

Martin nodded. "Sure. I'll give it a try, but..." He fell silent, not sure what else to say.

"We'll be off." Amelie nodded to Jean and Anna Marie, both of whom vanished into smoke. "Call me as soon as you can," she told him.

"I will."

Amelie bowed her head, and vanished in a puff of smoke.

Neloth's arms were crossed, his foot tapping against the stone. "Aren't you going to read it?" he demanded. "I thought that was the whole reason you dragged me out here."

"I know, I know. Thank you," Martin said offhandedly, flipping the book open on its pedestal.

_Bring you forth the lovestruck mute who preys with vigor on his love, and set the sky alight with all who dare to struggle 'gainst our move. For we are they who own the night and all who dwell without us fall; we drink the mind-grapes formed of thought and wail a tumult on the wall. To sweep..._

* * *

Water lapped at the edges of a ledge. Wind blew in unpredictable patterns, paper pages swirling in cyclones. He was dizzy and disoriented again, feeling different but the same. The clouds above came together, a frightening eye materializing within them.

"As I told you when I gave you the Oghma Infinium, your free will is an illusion. Why else would you be here?"

Martin shoved himself to his feet, feeling as though he might overbalance. "Where... where am I?"

"This is Apocrypha, where all knowledge is hoarded," Hermaeus Mora said, his voice slow and oddly calming. "Sate your thirst in the endless stacks of my library. Read your book again to return to your mortal life... for a time. The lure of Apocrypha will call you back. It is your fate."

Martin narrowed his eyes, distrustful. "What if what I need isn't here?"

"It is, and you will find it. Anything you could ever need to know, you will always find here."

The eye blinked, and the clouds evaporated to leave the green-tinged skies clear. Not entirely fond of the Prince's all-knowing tone, Martin looked around the stacks of books and again doubted that what he needed was here. Innumerable pages balanced in dangerously tilting towers as far as he could see. Finding _anything_ in this disorganized mess would be a fruitless endeavor.

_**"ZOOR!"**_ he called.

Amelie materialized from thin air before him and sent him reeling back in shock. She held her staff and wore her ring, but as she looked up at the skies and around at the stacks of books, Martin barely contained a shout of joy. She was just barely transparent, faint specks of light following her as she moved, and most amazingly... she was pink the cheeks and lips, the braid down her back a deep brown like her eyes, her dress a vivid shade of deep blue lined with gold embroidery at the hems and sleeves.

She almost looked alive.

"What do you need?" she asked absently, still taking in the surroundings. "Where are we?"

"Amelie... do you...?" He fumbled for words, confused but overjoyed. "Are you feeling...?"

"I'm fine, why_—!"_ Amelie turned at last to look at him, and gasped as she did. She stared at him, eyes wide.

"Amelie?"

She raised shaking hands to her face, covering her mouth for a moment as she tried to respond. Words failed her as well, and her hands dropped, her mouth still open. "How...?"

"You look _normal,"_ he said, still trying to process this.

"You... I..." She shook her head, a laugh catching in her throat as she smiled. "I, I just, I forgot how—"

"Forgot what?"

"You... you were so _tall,"_ she said helplessly.

He frowned, confused. "What?"

"You-!" She walked up to him, taking his arm and pulling him towards the edge of the water. "Look!"

Martin tore his eyes from her smile and looked down at the water. He watched his eyes widen, his knees hitting the ground as he took in his own brown hair and squarish face, tanned skin and the collar of his old, grey priest's robes. He ran a hand through his hair, floored. How long had it been, since he had seen his own reflection instead of Jean's?

"What... how?" he asked, looking back up at Amelie. She was staring down at the water as well, less impressed with her own reflection than she was with his.

"I don't know," she said, meeting his eyes. "But...!"

Martin shot back up to his feet, picking Amelie up and swinging her around, taking in every bit of her as they laughed. _"Martin!"_

He set her down, exhilarated. "Amelie, look at you! Look at _us!_ We could almost be _alive_, it's—!"

"You're so—"

"We're_—both_ of us, I mean—"

"And look at all of this!" She scanned what little of the horizon they could see between the towers of books. "I feel more at home here than I ever did in the Isles, where are we?"

"Apocrypha," Martin told her. Her smile dimmed somewhat.

"Hm. That makes sense... I mean, I suppose—the book sort of absorbs you or something, doesn't it?"

"I think so, but that doesn't matter," Martin said, too thrilled to truly think too hard about how or why. She beamed at him, bright and cheerful again. "My dear, let's see what this place holds for us."

"Hermaeus Mora must be more concerned with the mind than the body, right?" Amelie went on, following Martin across a bridge. "Maybe Jean gets left behind when the book does whatever it does... Oh I don't know, I can't be certain, but it's just _fantastic_, Martin."

They passed towers and shelves full to bursting with books and papers, pages blowing in the breezes around them. There were desks laden with forgotten research, even more pages plastering the ground beneath their feet and fluttering as the wind passed over them.

"Gods be. If I _had_ to be stuck somewhere for two hundred years, I would much rather it have been here than the Isles," Amelie mused, plucking a book at random from a tower. It did not collapse, but shifted to redistribute its weight.

"Do you think we can take these back with us?" Martin asked, picking a book from another tower and listening to the great rustling of pages and spines as the tower shifted and restabilized.

"I should think so. I mean..." She nodded to his bag, and the quiver of arrows on his back. "Supposing those aren't just for show."

As they walked aimlessly towards one wall or away from another, Apocrypha began to remind Martin of a chapel. The high windows looked like green stained glass, light filtering through and casting an eerie light on the pages and books. Even as the pair of them passed beneath the streams of light, it cast an ethereal, almost sickly color over them.

Martin poked a glowing, gold ball suspended by a curled tentacle. It dropped into a well, unfolding more platforms around them and opening up more of the world of Apocrypha. Tentacles rose from the murky waters, lashing out at them as they passed by. Amelie recoiled, the tentacle striking against the ground at her feet. A familiar, floating beast made of roots or tentacles hovered down the path, its back to them.

"What is that?" Amelie asked quietly, raising her staff.

Martin drew an arrow, tracking it as it hovered around the path. "I don't know. It didn't seem to like me last time."

"Wonderful." Amelie took the first shot, the mass of tentacles vanishing before it could hit. Three more materialized before them almost immediately and began throwing unfamiliar, draining magic at them. Amelie yelled and blew a stream of ice from her staff, one of the beasts exploding into hot air.

_**"YOL TOOR SHUL!"**_ Martin Shouted flames at the remaining pair of tentacle beasts, hearing a guttural roar from behind them. He cast a glance over his shoulder, seeing another of the tall, clawed creatures sprinting towards them. "AMI!"

She whipped around, drawing a long line with her staff across the pages littering the ground. Light burst up from it, the clawed monster crashing into it and cracking the panes of light. Martin threw fire at the mass of tentacles advancing on him, Amelie hastily scrawling symbols on the ground and tossing lightning over her shoulder.

The lurker shattered the panes of light, charging toward them. Amelie slammed her staff into the ground, a pillar of fire erupting from the runes and engulfing the lurker. It screeched and fell, melting down into another puddle of nothingness and leaving them alone again.

"Did Alenvar teach you that?" Martin asked, stunned. "I should have gotten lessons while he was alive."

She shook out her sleeves, the cinders refusing to adhere to her. "I improvised some of it. That may have been a bit much..." Amelie plucked a burnt page out of the air, frowning at it.

"I'm not complaining." Martin searched through what remained of the lurker and the tentacle beasts that had so easily sought them out. "I don't suppose they—?"

Amelie cut him off with a gasp as she picked up a book from one of the seekers. She leafed through it, her eyes wide.

"What is it?" Martin looked over her shoulder at the pages. They were riddled with handwriting in the margins, written in a familiar hand.

"This is mine," she breathed. "This is my copy of _Remanada... _I-I took it from Cloud Ruler Temple, I always wondered if Jauffre was cross with me for never bringing it back. I lost this decades ago, I never knew where it went."

Amelie sank down to the ground, reading through the old pages. Martin sat down beside her, rummaging through what was left of the seekers and finding more books, ancient and worn.

"Do you think...?" He broke off as she looked up at him with an enchanted light in her eyes, and all the words left him as she smiled a truer smile than he had seen in a long time and leaned over to show him a passage.

"I spent _years_ with this book... What else do you think is here?" she asked.

"Anything we could ever need."

* * *

They wandered freely through the stacks of books, pausing every so often to pick up another old book, another yellowing set of pages full of stories. Martin offered Amelie his arm and the pair walked around stacks of knowledge, pools of angry tentacles, and through more attacks from seekers and lurkers. The labyrinth of books wound on for miles, chapters of forbidden and forgotten knowledge twisting in impossible paths that all led to a pedestal where Epistolary Acumen lay.

The book was pulsating, beating almost like a heart. The pages glowed with forbidden magic and cast an eerie light over the pages that plastered the ground. Martin flipped the book open, light and magic bursting forth from it.

"Are you sure this is wise?" Amelie asked, hanging back from the book. He turned back to look at her, the book still open behind him. She asked it fairly, and without condescension.

"I have to know what Miraak knows," he said.

"You keep saying that, but what does that _mean?_"

"I don't know. Hopefully, these Black Books will tell me," Martin said. "This may just be the beginning."

"What exactly do you need?" She looked back at the stacks of books that had led them this far. "I mean, Miraak has been alive for thousands of years, he is bound to know any number of obscure secrets. I get the feeling we may never find everything, we could be searching Apocrypha forever."

He returned his attention to the book that lay open on the pedestal, turning a page. "Would that be so bad?" he asked, softly enough that she could not hear.

Clouds formed in the sky, Hermaeus Mora peering down at them from a double-pupilled eye that appeared within them. Dozens of other eyes that opened and closed at random surrounded it, along with a mass of writhing tentacles.

"You thought to reject me, and yet here you are."

At the edge of his vision, Martin saw Amelie scurry away to a sheltered corner. She cowered away from the Prince—and well she should, he supposed. None of them had a particularly pleasant history with Daedric Princes.

"Your journey towards enlightenment has led you to my realm, as I knew it would."

Martin laid his hands on the pages of the book, scanning for anything that could be important. "What do you want of me this time?"

"You have sought out forbidden knowledge that only one other has obtained. You are Dragonborn, like Miraak before you... a seeker of knowledge and power."

Silence. Martin lifted his head to look at the eye, breathing deeply. "I will not serve you," he said. "I just need to defeat Miraak."

"Is that _all_ you need?" Hermaeus Mora taunted. "You will serve me, willing or not. All who seek after the secrets of the world are my servants. I know what you want."

Brilliant rivers of magic flowed from the eyes, words ringing in his ears. _**HAH.**_

"Mind," he whispered to himself.

"The second word of power. Use your power as Dragonborn to bend the world to your will, bend the wills of mortals to your purpose," Hermaeus Mora told him. "But Miraak knows the final word. Without that, you cannot hope to surpass him. Miraak served me well, and he was rewarded." The words hung in the air, sinking in. "I can grant you the same power as he wields, but all knowledge has its price."

Martin glared up at the eye, weighing his response. "I need all three, then."

"Even _dragons_ submit to Miraak's voice," Hermaeus Mora said. "Without that power, you cannot face him. So say I, Hermaeus Mora, master of the tides of Fate."

"Is he not your ally?" Martin pointed out. "Why should I defeat him, why would you help me in this?"

"He has served me long and well. But he grows restless under my guidance," said the Prince. "His desire to return to your world will spread my influence more widely, but it will also set him free from my direct control. It may be time to replace him with a more loyal servant... one who still appreciates the gifts that Apocrypha has to offer."

"Martin," came a small voice from behind him. He cast a glance over his shoulder. Amelie's hands were clasped together under her chin, her face scrunched up in a frown. She shook her head the tiniest fraction of an inch. "Please, don't."

Martin's shoulders drooped as he turned back to Hermaeus Mora. "What's your price for the last word?" he asked.

The great eye blinked slowly. "Knowledge for knowledge."

Martin stayed silent, waiting for some indication of what this meant. What knowledge could Apocrypha possibly be lacking? He felt he could easily wander the labyrinth of books for eternity and never see the end of it.

"The Skaal have withheld their secrets from me for many long years," the Prince went on. "The time has come for this knowledge to be added to my library."

"How do I know I can trust you?" Martin asked.

"My word is as true as fate, as inevitable as destiny. Bring me what I want, and I will give you what you seek. Have I not already guided you to the path that leads to what you need?"

He looked back at Amelie, watching her frown deepen. No Prince was to be trusted, he knew that much. And yet...

"Send the Skaal shaman to me," Hermaeus Mora said. "He holds the secrets that will be mine."

The eye closed, and the tentacles and clouds surrounding it vanished into the misty skies. The book beneath his hands glowed again, ancient powers presenting themselves to him.

"Martin—"

"I will not serve him," he assured her, looking between the magics he was offered. "I do not need to, all I need is to learn the last word."

"What if we learned it on our own?" Amelie asked.

"How? I'm willing to look, but Shouts are not as simple as reading a spellbook," Martin said, plucking a ball of magical light out of the air. "Without help, I may never figure out which word is the word I need... _Dragonborn Flames..._" The power of fire rushed from the ball of magic into his soul, lighting a fire in his chest.

Amelie watched with a furrowed brow as the light from the book dimmed. "What if..." She broke off, fussing with the end of her braid. "What if Mora is lying?"

"He said—"

"I heard what he said." Amelie looked hard at him. "I should hope that you of all people remember how harsh fate has been with us all."

Martin dropped his gaze to the floor for a moment, swallowing past a lump in his throat. "I don't pretend to like the idea of having to do favors for Hermaeus Mora. Believe me, I would not risk all of this if I knew a way not to."

Amelie sighed, finally nodding. "If you're certain. Do you think there's anything else to find here?"

Martin shook his head, reluctant to leave. "We should probably get back. Neloth is bound to be curious about what we found."

"Right." She bowed her head, vanishing and leaving faint specks of light in her wake. Martin watched the little pinpoints of starlight dim and flicker out where she had stood.

After a long moment, Martin reached into his bag, now full to bursting with books, and reopened the copy that would take him back to Morrowind.

* * *

Once Martin moved again, wobbling unsteadily and closing the Black Book, Neloth scrambled back to his feet.

"What happened? What did you see?" Neloth demanded immediately. "People have very different experiences with—"

_**"HUN KAAL ZOOR!"**_

Three ghosts descended from the ceiling, pale blue and transparent once again. They were in the middle of conversation, Amelie speaking quickly. "...last word for the Shout, we need to talk to Storn again," she said.

Anna Marie and Jean nodded. "Right. Ok—"

_"Excuse me,"_ Neloth said testily. "What did you see?"

Martin rearranged the contents of his bag to accomodate the Black Book, taking care not to bend or rip anything. "I talked to Hermaeus Mora—"

"You're still acting surprisingly sane, too. What did he have to say? He must have wanted something from you."

"He taught me the second word of Miraak's Shout." His gaze flickered to Amelie for a split second. "But I still need the third, or it's useless."

"No wonder the Dwemer were so interested in that book," Neloth said, peering down his nose at the book in Martin's hands. "It was indeed one that Miraak used to advance his power as Dragonborn. And now you, it seems... But I assume there's some bad news? It would be entirely unlike Hermaeus Mora to allow anyone to gain such knowledge without exacting a price."

Amelie turned her head and stood up on her toes to whisper to Jean as Neloth spoke. Anna Marie leaned in as well, the three of them with their heads together and frowns on their faces while Martin went on.

"He wants the secrets of the Skaal in exchange for teaching me the last word," Martin said. "I need to go back to Skaal Village and speak to the shaman."

"Hmph." Neloth scowled, rolling his eyes. "What secrets could they have worth keeping from old Mora? Sounds like a bargain to me. Hermaeus Mora learns some fascinating new ways to skin a horker, and you become the second most powerful Dragonborn that ever lived."

"I can't say it sounds like a bad deal," Jean agreed. "Provided the Skaal aren't secretly guarding eternal life or something."

"Hermaeus Mora is bad news, though. We have to be careful," Anna Marie said, frowning. "He's not to be trusted."

"I don't have a choice if I am ever going to take on Miraak and come out alive," Martin pointed out. "I need the last word, without it I am as good as dead."

Neloth shrugged his shoulders, now thoroughly disinterested in the conversation. "Well, this has given me a lot to think about. I need to get back to Tel Mithryn, I have some ideas about how to locate more of these Black Books."

"Let me know what you find," Martin said immediately. "I would love to see more."

Neloth grinned deviously. "I could use a decent assistant. Be careful in there, though: you're no good to me if you lose your mind. Stop by later, I may have one located by the next time we meet."

"Where should we go?" Anna Marie asked.

"Back to Raven Rock," Martin said, following Neloth on the way out of Nchardak. "I need to drop a few things back at the house, perhaps we can spend a little time there..."

* * *

_**"HUN KAAL ZOOR!"**_

Three ghosts descended from the dust, looking around in confusion. The barrow was quiet, and several miners lay dead in the ash. A horde of draugr was bound to be further in.

"Really?" Jean grumbled. "I did _not_ just spend days helping you straighten out Heljarchen's walls just so you could die in this damned barrow. I thought we had important things to do."

"We do. This is now one of them," Martin said.

Anna Marie nudged an overturned urn aside with the toe of her boot. "What's the damage?"

"Six dead at least. Probably more," Martin said, leading them deeper into Kolbjorn Barrow. There was less dust than there had been the previous time they had checked up on Ralis's expedition, but also more blood.

"I'm beginning to like this less and less," Amelie said, turning over a body with the end of her staff. A young woman with a pickaxe at her belt lay dead in the dust. "A lot of people have died in here, Martin."

Martin did not reply.

"Martin?"

"Shh."

"Don't you _dare—"_

Martin held up a hand, listening intently. There was a faint chanting. "Do you hear that?"

Amelie scowled at him. "No."

He turned to Jean and Anna Marie, both of whom shook their heads. Martin followed the source of the noise through what little was accessible of the barrow.

"Martin, what—"

"It's a word."

"A word? In here?" Anna Marie asked.

"What if it's Bend Will?" he asked, meeting Amelie's eyes. "If we can get it out of here, then we don't need Storn to give up knowledge to Hermaeus Mora."

"Do you think it really might be?" Amelie asked.

"I won't know until I see the wall." Martin paced around the room, listening for where the sound was strongest. "It's definitely here, under the ash, but I cannot tell what it is."

"What if it's something useless, then?" she asked.

"It won't be useless, it's still a word. Words can only do me good in the fight against Miraak," Martin pointed out.

"Risk versus reward." Jean shrugged. "On the one hand, we've got a dozen dead miners and whoever else it takes to dig out the wall, not to mention the thousands of gold it'll cost you. On the other hand, you get something new to Shout at the sky, so on the whole—" Anna Marie elbowed her brother in the stomach. "Ow!"

"Your call," Anna Marie said.

"Is it worth it?" Amelie asked.

"It _does_ look like Ralis is getting somewhere," Martin reasoned. "Best case scenario, this saves the Skaal from having to give anything up to Hermaeus Mora and gets me out of having to serve him. Worst case, I still get some sort of word."

"Ralis needs to hire some muscle to keep the draugr under control, or he'll just keep losing miners," Anna Marie said as they turned to leave the barrow.

"I'll mention it to him," Martin promised. "This will be worth it, one way or another."


	5. What If

**What If**

Martin gasped, and opened his eyes. The dim, empty barrow came back into focus. He was alone.

He swore, picking up The Sallow Regent from where he had dropped it and flipping back through the pulsing pages. White Ridge Barrow had sounded from the west, leading him towards both a wall and another Black Book.

_Woe betide my fate-wrecked heart_

_Which gives no tender shrine to he_

_Who gave his favors up to gods_

_And brought his blood-struck mind to me._

* * *

_**"ZOOR!"**_

Amelie descended in living color, eyes wide and terrified. "Gods be, what happened? Are you all right?" she asked. "Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine."

"Fine? How are you _fine, _what happened?"

Martin shrugged. "I just came back out in the barrow and read the book again. Nothing really happened."

Amelie looked back over the edge of the latticed platform. A vast drop that faded into darkness stretched ever downwards. "Scared me senseless... that was quite the drop."

Martin stared down as well, not at all keen to repeat the experience of falling down it. "At least it seems I cannot die here."

Amelie conjured a ball of light to carry with them, wandering around the stacks of books and searching for the thing that had brought them here. Martin paused for what felt no longer than a moment to listen, trying to discern the direction the Black Book wanted him to take.

"How long have we been here?" Amelie asked suddenly.

"Hm?"

"In Apocrypha, in this book. How long has it been?"

"Not long enough," Martin said. "We cannot leave without whatever secrets this book holds."

"Apocrypha holds _all _secrets."

Martin sighed. "I cannot explain it any better. If I am to defeat Miraak, I have to know—"

"If you say that one more time, I will leave you here on your own," she warned.

"You wouldn't."

Amelie narrowed her eyes, replacing the ball of light as it faded. "Don't test me."

Martin yanked a book out of a stack, listening to the great shifting of pages and leatherbound covers. The secrets of the Black Books would _never_ be found in one of these stacks, full of these books that were more clutter than knowledge. And yet, as he leafed through a fragment of Notes on Racial Phylogeny...

"You know me." Amelie spoke up again, taking the book from his grasp. "I love research. I love books. But this whole quest for the Black Books doesn't sit right with me. I don't understand it."

"Is it because the Black Books are of no use to you?" Martin asked.

"No! No, it's just—I don't know how to help you," she said. "And that worries me."

"I don't know if I can explain the Black Books in a way you can understand," Martin said honestly. "It's... There's some kind of disconnect between you listening and you understanding, and I don't know how to bridge it. I feel like every time I try, I talk and you don't quite hear me."

"Because what you say doesn't make any sense, you're right," Amelie said. "Not to be mean, but everything about these books flies in the face of all that I know."

"Well... if nothing else, I am glad to have you around," he told her.

She glowered at him. "Is _that_ why we are seeking out all these books?"

"N-No, I—of course not, it's—"

"Then why are we here?" she asked.

"Because—"

Amelie cut him off with a raised hand. "And don't you _dare_ say it's just because you need to know what Miraak knows. What—are—we—doing—here?" she asked, slowly and evenly.

There was a long, uncomfortable pause. Martin struggled for words and found none, as he often did. Amelie gave a resigned sigh and turned to search down another tunnel walled in by stacks of books. Martin followed, still struggling.

"We should be finding all of the Stones," Amelie reprimanded. "If we can break Miraak's hold on the Stones, Storn will—"

"If these books will allow me not to involve Storn, do you not think that would be better?" Martin asked. "Better I spend a bit longer in Apocrypha than if Skaal Village were to get wrapped up in all this."

"I don't think either option is _better,"_ she said, "but one would certainly be _easier."_

Guessing that the easier option was the one that did not involve the Black Books, Martin held his tongue.

At the end of a winding path, Sallow Regent lay on a pedestal, waiting for him. Amelie hung back and watched as he leafed through it, looking at what there was to be learned from it. _I have what you need. What do you seek: might, stealth, or...?_

"What is it?" Amelie asked once had closed the book.

"The Seeker of Sorcery," he said quietly. "Something I've always sought after."

"What does that mean?"

Martin took a deep breath. "I... It's not that simple, it's—"

"Are these books even useful to you?"

"I don't know how to make you understand what they mean, what they do. But they do _something,_ and..." He searched for a way to put this that would sound acceptable.

_"Seeker of Sorcery_ sounds like no long-forgotten secret of Apocrypha. You could kill Miraak without it, surely."

"And what if I can't?" he asked.

There was a moment of silence, the uncertainty of Martin's success or failure hanging in the air.

"I think any weapon I can have against another Dragonborn cannot be a bad weapon," he said finally. "I would rather be overprepared."

Amelie's frown did not lessen. "Right. All right, fine. Let's go, then."

Martin traced the pattern of the stitches on the cover. "I thought you liked Apocrypha."

Amelie's shoulders drooped. It was these times of frustration when her age truly showed in her eyes, a dim fog of exhaustion clouding them. "I do, but I don't think I enjoy it is as much as you do."

She bowed her head and vanished.

* * *

Martin fumbled with his map, still sprinting away from the horde of little waist-height creatures that chased them down, hurling spears and gibberish at them.

"How far is it?" Jean demanded.

"I-It's—!"

Anna Marie turned around and bashed one of the critters with her shield. A howl of pain, immediately followed by chittering and guttural gibberish.

"MOVE!"

Amelie drew a line in the snow. A wall of light burst up, melting the snow and blocking all but a handful of little creatures from following them. Anna Marie seized one that tried to attack her and threw it back over the wall, lashing out at another that held a handful of spears.

"In here!" Martin shouted, waving them towards the mouth of a cave. "This way!"

The cave buzzed with the chitters of more of the little creatures, and the noise of their arrival brought the entire cave to converge upon them. Martin blazed a trail through the camp of Rieklings, sprinting through drafty tunnels that wound around and around until they came to a door. Finally—a place to defend.

Jean slammed the door shut once everyone was inside. "You'd better hope there's a back way out of this place," he panted, sliding down to sit with his back against the door. "Else we're just waiting here until they forget about us."

"In theory, we could just kill them all," Amelie pointed out. "Nothing is stopping us from just setting fire to their camps and watching them run the other way."

"That's a lot of... things, Ami," Anna Marie pointed out. "I'd rather not, if we don't have to."

"Yes, but _in theory..."_

Martin had stopped listening. Familiar sounds had drawn his attention deeper down the path and into the barrow.

"How do you always find these things?" Jean grumbled.

"I am Dragonborn. I am the only one who can make use of them," he said. "The words are of no use to anyone without the Voice."

Something whispered something from far inside the barrow. _I have what you need. I have what you need to..._

* * *

"How do you _always_ find these things?" Jean demanded.

"Where else would they be, but these forgotten corners of Solstheim?" Martin asked, looking over the words he had pulled off the Wall before flipping open Untold Legends. "No library would dare house them, they are too dangerous."

"Then why do you keep them all?" Amelie asked shrewdly.

Martin did not answer.

"Did you hear it? From out there?"

"How could anyone have heard anything over those babbling little anklebiters?" Anna Marie pointed out.

"Did you?" Amelie pressed.

"No." Martin snapped his journal of words shut. "All I thought was that the cave was safe."

She watched him, quiet. "...Fine." The ghosts promptly vanished, leaving him to look over Untold Legends as it pulsed and whispered.

_I have what you need to explain._

"Please... _please_ be useful," Martin prayed, pulling back its cover.

_As the great ships of men crawled the waves to their destinies, there were, after long years, a number of tales lost in the mists of morning. Even after the forgetting though, wisps of story find ways to receptive ears as even the deepest of secrets never truly dies. When fires burn and the night grows soft in—_

* * *

_I have what you need to explain._

_**"ZOOR!"**_

Amelie brushed out the creases in her sleeves, quickly taking stock of their surroundings. "What do you need?"

Martin shook his head. "A lot of things."

"What do you need from _here?"_ she clarified, glaring at him.

"Something. I don't know," he said.

Amelie smiled faintly, reaching out to take a book from a stack. "By the Nine."

"What's that?" Martin peered over her shoulder, looking at what she had found.

"A Response to Bero's Speech," she said. "I wrote a dissertation about this once. It might have been the only thing of mine that Raminus liked."

Martin led the way down the path, Amelie lingering behind to read over Bero's speech again. "Do you think all the Black Books are linked?" Martin asked.

"Hm?" Amelie dropped the book on a desk spread with rolls of paper and empty inkwells. "What do you mean?"

"Well..." Martin peeked down into his overfull bag. "Miraak is in Waking Dreams. You and I have been through Sallow Regent and Epistolary Acumen, but never saw him. Do you think the Black Books are safe spaces from Miraak?"

"I won't go so far as to say for sure, but I suppose it might be possible," Amelie said. "If nothing else, Apocrypha is difficult to traverse. I think even if they are linked, the only way to face Miraak would be to go through Waking Dreams."

"Hm."

"Which means all these other Black Books are—"

"They are _not_ useless," Martin insisted. "They—they're _not_, I promise."

"I trust you. I do, I always have," Amelie reminded him. "But this is fruitless. I mean—" She turned around to face him and crossed her arms. "Show me what the Seeker of Sorcery is."

"What?"

"Show me what you got from the last book."

"It's—no, I can't—"

"You cannot _kill_ me, so show me how it will help against Miraak."

"It's not—I mean, it's a strange thing—"

"All Daedric power is strange, Martin. All of it, I assure you," she told him. "Show me what it is. Explain it to me, help me understand."

Martin shook his head, at a loss. "I can't, Ami."

"Then what good is it against Miraak?"

"It's not a thing I can _show_ you!" he snapped. "It's more complicated than that!"

"Is it a passive enchantment?" she tried. "I want to know exactly what these books are doing for you."

"I don't know how to explain it in a way that will satisfy you!" Martin seized a book from a nearby stack whose spine looked familiar—a copy of Advances in Lockpicking to reread later—and shoved it into his bag. "There is knowledge here unknown even to you, every time I bring you here you leave with a library's worth of books for Aleius—"

_"Alenvar."_

"—and the rest of your University, and of all that, you would still question whether or not I am learning anything useful?"

"It's the only reason we're here, isn't it?" she shot back. Martin held his tongue. _"Isn't it?"_ Amelie pressed.

He looked away from her, trying to string together words that did not exist to explain something he did not completely understand.

Amelie uncrossed her arms. "I knew it." She shook her head, pushing past him to continue down the path. "I should have guessed."

"Ami—"

"If it's not that, then what is it?" she snapped, throwing an incensed glare back at him.

"It's not—I mean, it _is_, but—" Lost again, Martin wilted beneath her stare. "Amelie, I hate when you get upset with me."

"Then just explain why we're here!" Amelie threw up her hands. Martin glimpsed a tinge of red in her face as she turned away, storming down the path. "It's that simple, I just want to know _why we are here, _why you insist on going into every Black Book in creation, why you _have_ to come back here! If it's not for Miraak and it's not for what we lost, then what is it?"

"You... you think we lost something?" Martin asked, caught off-guard. "You never said so."

"Now's not the time for that—"

"You never want to discuss it, so maybe it is," Martin persisted. "Do you think you and I—"

_"Don't_ change the subject—"

"Amelie, I have spent—"

"Whatever time you have spent, I _guarantee _I have spent more," she spat at him. "Now is not the time for this!"

"Then when _is—"_

"I _do not_ want to talk about this!"Amelie stamped her staff against the ground, seething as she held her ground. "If you cannot explain the Seeker of Sorcery to me, then why should I—"

Martin cut her off by walking past her, Untold Legends pulsing and whispering on its pedestal. _I have what you need to explain._ "That's it," he said quietly. "Untold Legends."

Amelie gave a little huff and crossed her arms. "Just take the book so we can leave."

Martin flipped open the book, watching and listening to the paths of knowledge the book offered. _The knowledge of bards, in tale-telling and song, masters of singing soft words and crafting lyrical speech..._

"What is it this time?" Amelie asked as Martin took what he needed.

"If I can explain the Seeker of Sorcery, will you answer me?" Martin asked instead, turning around to face her.

"What?" She scowled. "I thought you couldn't explain it."

"I still have no word for what it _is_, but I think I can explain it somehow." Martin carefully fitted the Black Book into his bag. "If you still care, at least."

"Of course I care. What is it?"

"I am." Martin gave a little shrug. "I am the Seeker of—"

"That's not fair—"

"Let me finish."

Amelie fell silent, looking suspicious.

"I am the Seeker of Sorcery, because I sought after you." He watched her as he spoke, perfect words gathering at the tip of his tongue. "I have never forgotten and I never will. I have lost you so many times—"

"I am not yours to lose," Amelie reminded him quietly.

"I—no, you're right," he conceded. "But you cannot deny that you have been missing from me. You have been missing from my life so many times and for so long, and I do not think I could bear to miss you again. When all is said and done, I will always seek you out."

Her head dipped a fraction of an inch, the anger gone from her expression. "I... that's still of no help to you against Miraak," she pointed out.

"Maybe not. I come to these books so I can learn what I need, but I bring you with me just in case I never do. If this fight against Miraak goes against me..." He swallowed hard. "I am Dragonborn, and so is he. I hardly think it unbelievable that the loser's soul will never reach Aetherius."

Amelie pulled at the hems of her sleeves, where singed and frayed threads used to be. "Don't say that."

Martin led her a little ways down the path to a stone bench, where they sat in silence for a long moment. He watched her stare intently at a page embedded in the ground, her chin in her hands.

"Will you answer me now?" Martin asked, when the moment had gone on long enough.

She nodded in silence, her eyes still on the paper.

"Do you think we lost something when I died?" he asked.

"No." Amelie sat up straight and looked at him. "When you died, I had known you for... maybe half a year. By the time Hieronymus and I got married, we had known each other for _years_."

"But—"

"Do you want the truth?" she asked.

Martin weighed his options. "I suppose."

"Good, I'm not in the habit of lying to you." She turned a bit on the bench, the better to face him. "I don't think we lost anything. We had nothing to lose. But for those years after the war, when Ocato took power and the world just moved on, I used to wonder..."

"Wonder what?" Martin prompted.

"What if," she said. "What if I had been faster in Paradise, what if Tar-Meena and I had deciphered the books faster, what if something I had done... or _not_ done... had pushed the quest on long enough that we were too late?" Amelie sighed. "And then, what if you had lived? What if Ocato never needed to take over as ruler, what if the Dragonfires had been lit, what if I had _made_ you follow up on those parting words—"

He laughed.

"—what if you and I _made_ something I would be afraid to lose?" Amelie asked. She shrugged her shoulders again. "I know this, this Apocrypha adventure is nothing like what it would be to be Emperor and Archmage again, but I still wonder that."

"You are my favorite _what if."_

Martin stood up and offered her his hand. Amelie smiled, and took it. The pair of them danced together to the rustling pages and creaking spines of the books in Apocrypha, to the disremembered tunes of ages past and future. The Black Books had so far given him no real weapons against Miraak... but this never once crossed his mind as being useless.

_I had what you needed... as I always will._


End file.
